Knitted fabric.



Patented Feb. 27, I900.

a. E. RUTLEDGE & u. 6. LEE.

KNITTED FABRIC.

(Appgation filed Dec. 16, 1899.)

(No Model) II In.

Jill enters mus r zrsns co, PHOTO-LUNG. WASHINOTUN. o. c.

GEORGE E. RUTLEDGE AND ULYSSES Gr. LEE, OF CHICAGO,- ILLINOIS, ASSIGN- ORS TO THE GEORGE D. IVHITOOMB COMPANY, OF SAME PLACE.

KNITTED FABRIC.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 644,466, dated February 27, 1900. Application filed Decembcrltl, I899- Serial No. 740,493. (No specimens.)

T0 in whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, GEORGE E. RUTLEDGE and ULYSSES GRANT LEE, citizens of the United States, and residents of Chicago, county of Cook, and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Knitted Fabrics, of which the following is a specification, and which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, forming apart thereof.

This invention relates to fabrics having certain portions knitted comparatively close and certain other portions knitted comparatively open, the comparatively-open work being secured by discontinuing some of the wales which had been continued through the comparatively-c1ose-knitted work.

In the knitting operation, especially when practiced on a knitting-machine, it has been found difficult to produce a garment of the above type without laboriously transferring the last stitch of the discontinued wales to the needles employed in knitting the wales which are to be continued through the more open work, for the reason that the tension upon the fabric as formed would pull out the stitches of the discontinued Wales.

The object of this invention is to provide a fabric in which this tendency to draw out or ravel the stitches is obviated; and it consists, broadly, in a fabric in which the last stitch of such of the intermediate wales as are discontinued is without direct connection with the wales which are continued, so that the tension as applied to the latter wales is not thrown upon the stitches of those wales which have been discontinued.

This invention is applicable to any form of garment or fabric in which such comparatively open and close knitted work is present.

For the purpose ofillustrating theinvention I have shown a series of undershirt-sleeves as they come from the knitting-machine, wherein the close-knitted work is the body and upper portion of the sleeve and the open-knitted work forms its cuif.

Figure 1 is an elevation of the fabric, intermediate portions being broken out to bring the figure within the limits of the sheet of drawings. Fig. 2 is a detail elevation upon an enlarged scale.

The wales discontinued in changing from the close to the more-open knitted work are dropped at the juncture of the upper end of one sleeve with the cuff of the next. In the article as shown the cuff portions are indicated at A B O and the body or close-knitted portion of the sleeves at D E. Inasmuch as the cuff is of less width than the upper end of the sleeve there is shown at each side a lateral projection or shoulder H h, and the wales of these portions are continued beyond the line at which the fabric will be separated for the purpose of working it into complete sleeves, so that several of the last stitches of these wales may be drawn out by the tension upon the fabric as the knitting operation proceeds without detriment to the fabric.

At 1) c are shown wales which are continued from the close-knitted work of the upper portion of one sleeve to the open-knitted work of the cuff portion of the next sleeve, and the yarn leads directly from the last stitch formed at the edge of the shoulder 7L back to the first of the wales b, to be con tinued into the cuff portion 13.

At d e are shown the last stitches of intermediate wales which are discontinued at the upper end of the sleeve, and it will be seen that these stitches, as well as the stitches next preceding them in the same wales, are not directly connected with the stitches of the wales which are continued into the cuff portion; but the direct connection is with the next discontinued Wale or with the first wales in the shoulder portions H h. The strand of yarn forming the connection between the stiches d e, which are separated by continued wales, is shown at g g.

As will be readily understood by those skilled in the art, certain stitches, as m, of the wales which are continued into the cuff are held upon their needles, while the last two stitches of the discontinued wales are formed so that the tension upon the fabric is largely upon the stitches thus held and is sustained by them and their successors in the same wales after the stitches d e have been cast off, and inasmuch as there is no direct connec tion between the wales continued into the cuff and these cast-off stitches there is no strain applied to the latter to draw them out.

The present invention does not relate to the dropping of the wales at either side of the comparatively-open-knitted work, nor does it relate to the connection between the last stitches of the discontinued intermediate wales and the wales of the side portions of the close-knitted work Vhile we have shown the last two stitches of the discontinued wales as being without connection with the wales which are continued into the openwork, the last of these stitches is not essential, and we do not, therefore, desire to be limited to a fabric in which a plurality of such disconnected stitches are formed at the end of each wale which is to be dropped.

\Ve claim as our invention- 1. As an article of manufacture, a knitted GEORGE E. RUTLEDGE. ULYssEs e. LEE.

In presence of PAUL CARPENTER, E. M. KLATCHER. 

